Octopath Traveler 0 review: retro art style, surprisingly modern RPG depth

Aesthetically speaking, Octopath Traveler 0 is fascinating, albeit increasingly familiar. A prequel to 2018’s Octopath Traveler (which spawned a 2023 sequel), it uses Square Enix’s HD-2D technology, as also seen in remakes of the first three Dragon Quest games. By pairing 2D sprite-based characters with 3D backgrounds (viewed to avoid incongruity from a retro near-isometric angle), HD-2D does a fine job of recreating the charming visual vibe of seminal early 8-bit and 16-bit RPGs, while cleverly adding modern levels of solidity, detail, vibrant colour palettes, and even tricksy animation effects.

In other words, it generates a kind of fantasy, an idealised take on retro graphics which, with the modern appetite for all things retro continuing apace, seems very on-trend. Given that Octopath Traveler 0 adds an element of village-building to the franchise’s classic turn-based JRPG blueprint – and, thanks to those HD-2D visuals, looks exactly how we expect such games to be – you might think it would offer a cosy gaming experience. But somehow, it manages to subvert that impression with some very Game of Thrones-style (without the sex – it’s still suitable for nearly all ages) bloodthirsty narrative flourishes.

For those who have played one of Octopath Traveler’s predecessors, Octopath Traveler 0 offers a clever mix of the familiar and the new – Octopath Traveler 2 was justifiably criticised for being too similar to its predecessor, but while Octopath Traveler 0 retains the franchise’s core, classic turn-based battling, its gameplay also deviates significantly – and effectively – from that of the previous two games.

Familiar but refreshed combat

This time around, rather than having to choose to play as one of eight characters, I was able to create my own character who, satisfyingly, became the star of the story.

Although the game’s combat is very much a collective affair, Octopath Traveler 0 put me in control of a battle-group of no fewer than eight characters, arranged in two rows of four, the rearmost of which provides support, while the front row does the fighting. You can switch any back-row character to the front each turn, and I soon discovered the benefits of taking care when arranging the order of the back-row characters.

One of the key aspects of Octopath Traveler 0’s battling – retained from previous games – is that each enemy has weaknesses to certain types of weapons and elemental attacks, and if I kept hitting those weaknesses, I would swiftly “break” the enemy, triggering a (one or two-round) period of causing greatly increased damage.

Pick the right job

As I progressed through the game, I acquired a large pool of battle-companions, some via the main storylines and others via side-missions, which are plentiful in Octopath Traveler 0, although they vary wildly between basic fetch-and-carry efforts and long, involved vignettes with decent storylines and sometimes even mini-bosses. Octopath Traveler 0’s characters have jobs (there are eight in total, including the likes of thief, warrior and dancer), which dictate the two weapons that they can wield. So once I formed a battle-party with the requisite mix of differently-employed participants, I could take on pretty much any type of enemy with maximum efficiency.

And as I progressed through the story, I kept discovering new layers to the battle system – all the characters in my battle party levelled up, earning points to acquire new special attacks and abilities, as well as passive support skills which were particularly handy for back-row battle-party members. I also discovered that swapping jobs for my main character eventually unlocked support skills that all party members could use, which proved vital against bosses in particular.

A labyrinthine, multi-path story

That all sounds much more complicated than it is in reality, mainly because its full complexity unfurled quite gradually as I progressed through the game. In its early stages, for example, I had only amassed a couple of battle-companions, and as my party grew, I became increasingly obsessed with organising it, improving it and arranging it to perfection. Which eventually became a necessity from about 20-odd hours in, since after that initial period, Octopath Traveler 0 threw some properly challenging opposition at me. Each area of the map (I could fast-travel, but only to cities) is rated with a level your party should be at, and it pays to be comfortably above that stated level.

Structurally, Octopath Traveler 0’s storyline was impressive and more imaginative than that of its predecessors. It began in the pretty village of Wishvale, of which my character was a resident; soon Wishvale was invaded and burned to the ground by a consortium of three evil enemies: Hermania, the rich and greedy queen, Tyros the corrupt warrior and Auguste the psychopathic playwright, each top dog of their own town in the game-world of Orsterra.

So after the initial period, the story morphed into a revenge mission: to take down those three enemies, each of whom had their own quest, which I could tackle in any order. As I had escaped the ruined Wishvale with Stia, daughter of the village’s builder, another quest emerged: to rebuild Wishvale, adding a new (for the franchise) element of village-building to the equation. That quest persisted throughout the entire game, with some major-league jumps in difficulty, so I quickly fell into a pattern of completing main quest chapters, doing a Wishvale reconstruction chapter, then returning to the main story.

The Wishvale questline was a key one, as it provided all manner of benefits for my battle-party, such as the ability to unlock previously locked chests, train battle-party members and cook stat-enhancing food. Throughout the map, I discovered elite enemies that, on defeat, yielded the means of upgrading buildings in the reconstituted Wishvale. Hugely challenging at first, I increasingly found myself going back to them in the later stages of the game. And the game rewarded general exploration well: I could talk to any characters I met, and interact with them in various ways to acquire useful items and even temporary battle-companions who could be subbed in at tricky moments.

Game of Thrones-style factional machinations

Dealing with the three sackers of Wishvale proved to be just an overture to the real business taking place in Orsterra: a burgeoning Game of Thrones-style battle between the different tribes of the land, manipulated and orchestrated by the monstrous Pardis III, king of Edoras, and his shape-shifting jester. Octtopath Traveler 0 is a very long game – it would take a completist 80 hours or so to complete its myriad storylines. But narratively speaking, it’s great: always absorbing, full of twists and stuffed full of captivating lore. And its story is way darker than the cosy visuals would have you expect.

Despite the retro visuals, then, Octopath Traveler 0 is a fully realised, truly heavyweight addition to the burgeoning modern canon of JRPGs, with a battle system that passes muster with the finest exponents of the genre (and, crucially, developed as my characters did, which sucked me into its intricacies to a near-obsessive degree) and a large amount of fine storytelling. Don’t be deceived by its visual homage to 8 and 16-bit RPGs (although its graphics, too, have more sophistication than I expected, with, for example, flashy mid-battle animations that increased my satisfaction in landing special moves). Octopath Traveler 0 is very much a modern JRPG with more than enough depth and character to compete with any of its peers.